A genealogy of EU discourses and practices of deliberative governance: Beyond states and markets?

The article offers a genealogy of ‘deliberative governance’ in the EU—an important contemporary discourse and practice of ‘throughput legitimacy’ within that setting. It focuses on three key episodes: the late 1990s ‘Governance’ reports of the European Commission's in‐house think‐tank, the Forward Studies Unit (FSU); the Commission's 2001 White Paper on Governance; and the EU's ‘Open Method of Coordination’, which emerged in the 1990s and was widely studied in the early and mid‐2000s. The genealogy serves to highlight the particular intellectual lineages and political contingencies associated with such a discourse and in so doing points to its exclusive potential in both theory and practice. In particular, the article argues that it excludes, on the one hand, those championing the enduring sociological and normative importance of the nation state and an associated representative majoritarianism and, on the other hand, those (excessively) critical of a functionalist, neoliberal, market‐making status quo.     

Elderly British men: homohysteria and orthodox masculinities

Abstract

There is limited research about homosociality and physical tactility between men in the early to middle decades of the twentieth century. This research utilizes 27 in-depth interviews with heterosexual British men aged between 65 and 91 in order to explore their masculinity and homosociality, then and today. Participants were interviewed about (1) their recollections of masculinity and same-sex friendships aged 18; (2) their awareness of, and attitudes towards, homosexuality at this age; and (3) their current views regarding today’s heterosexual male’s gendered behaviours, inclusive of their kissing, cuddling and loving other men. Results show that men born between 1924 and 1951 lived in absence of, or desire for, homosocial affection. Even today they look upon the display of inclusive masculinities by today’s male youth with disdain. We suggest that their antipathy towards homosociality is reflective of elevated cultural homophobia and homohysteria of their youths.     

Refugees,economic migrants and weak cosmopolitanism

This article takes issue with several features of David Miller’s account of justice with respect to refugees and to economic migrants, as outlined in Strangers in our Midst. It suggests that even within the terms of his own weak cosmopolitanism, the requirements of justice are more demanding than he acknowledges. In particular, the argument advanced criticizes Miller’s ‘fair shares’ argument concerning obligations to refugees and his recourse to ‘mutual advantage’ in theorizing economic migration.     

Reducing Adolescents’ Perceived Barriers to Treatment and Increasing Help-seeking Intentions: Effects of Classroom Presentations by General Practitioners

The Building Bridges to General Practice (BBGP) program is an outreach initiative. It aims to reduce young peoples’ perceived knowledge- and belief-based barriers to engaging in treatment and to increase their behavioral intentions to consult a general medical practitioner (GP) for physical and psychological problems. By increasing intentions, the BBGP program aims to increase actual consultations with a GP for both types of problem. A quasi-experimental nested design was used to evaluate the effect of the intervention in three Australian high schools. A Treatment group (n = 173, M = 16 years) and Comparison group (n = 118, M = 15 years) completed questionnaires of perceived barriers, intentions and self-reported consultations with a GP. Questionnaires were completed 1 week before the intervention, 5 then 10 weeks post-intervention. The Treatment group, but not the Comparison group, showed reductions in perceived barriers over time, increased intentions to consult a GP for psychological problems and a significant correlation between intentions and subsequent GP consultations. Results support the utility of the intervention for improving adolescents’ beliefs, intentions and behavior related to consulting a GP for physical and psychological problems.